The St Vitalis Skull: The Whole Truth!

It seems the whole St Vitalis thing has really intrigued my friends - they are all talking about the skull.  At a Consecration Mass on Tuesday evening a number were huddled around in a group pondering over my blog on an iPhone and discussing whether the skull was authentic or not.  Today another mate, a priest, has informed me that he and his school pal now living in England, have finally worked out how the skull ended up in Ireland.  It's so funny I thought I'd share it.

Young Anglo-Irish gentleman (henceforth referred to as "your boyo") is doing the grand tour thing.  Starting off with great intentions he ends up availing of the services of those whom it is not moral to avail services of, and after a number of services your boyo ends up with a rash or another such aggressive complaint that tends to come from availing too often of services that it is not moral to avail of. 

In desperation he seeks a cure of this aggressive complaint before he goes home, otherwise how could he explain how he ended up with this complaint when he was supposed to be finishing off his education?  Perhaps (it is cited by my friend and his pal) in such desperation your boyo was introduced to a foreign gentleman who informed him that there was a cure to be found in the rub of the relic of St Vitalis of Assisi, whose patronage covers such aggressive complaints.  And you would never guess, but he knows where to get the skull of this saint for the rubbing, but it will require a tidy sum and the utmost secrecy: if the priest found out there would be war.  Though it offends his respectable Protestant sensibilities, your boyo agrees, hands over the dosh (translation: money) and off goes yon foreign gentleman to raid the sacristy. 

However, the foreign gentleman does not go to the local church, for the relics of its saints and martyrs are guarded with great jealousy because there is always the threat that the crowd from the parish next door might stage a raid to grab whatever relics they can - a common pastime in Europe at the time.  He takes another turn and ends up in the local charnel house, where rifling through the various skulls of the dearly departed picks one, that of the late Signora Maria Teresa Benedetti-Morales fine upstanding mistress of the Buon Amici hostelry out the Milan road, who died at the ripe old age of 93 after burying three husbands, all rich, and finally succumbing herself following an incident with a hazelnut.*  And polishing up the skull, the foreign gentleman brings it to your boyo.  Delighted, with utmost faith in the fake, your boyo heads off back to the manoral pile in Ireland hoping this Vitalis of wherever will do the job and return him to his pristine state.  

We may never know if your boyo got the cure, but if not, the skull of the saint would be enough to distract the mater's attention.  And so it remained in the ancestral seat until one day a young little auctioneer arrived on the scene with a heap of dosh to carry off the skull to Hollywood with the promise of making it famous.  Here endeth the proposition.

The late Signora Maria Teresa Benedetti-Morales (note the resemblance to the skull)

Indeed!  I take it, then, they think it is a fake.

* That bit about Signora Benedetti-Morales is my insertion, which I do admit might not be the most inspired; call it a bit of colour, if nothing else.